Abstract

The growing concern in the public policy literature with policy entrepreneurs is probably the consequence of their increasing role in the formulation and implementation of public decisions. The technical and social complexity of democratic governance probably calls for the innovative potential which this kind of actors can bring into the policy-making process. This article firstly explores the concept of policy entrepreneur, identifying its defining properties and suggesting a typology of entrepreneurship based upon a strategic and a cognitive dimension, and secondly presents some hypothesis regarding the resources these actors activate, and the conditions which favour their emergence.